Earlier this week, I received a brief note from our traveling correspondent, Andrew Morang. He is in Austria, and sent a couple of pictures of a local commuter train.
He writes: ” This is the regional train between Kufstein, Austria, and Munich, Germany. The train is operated by Meridian, but I do not know if that is an independent company or part of the Deutsche Bahn system. The rail cars are immaculately clean, quiet, and electrically operated. “
I first came across the work of A. Aubrey Bodine about ten years ago, but it is only in the last year that I discovered his railroad photography. Trains: Photography of A. Aubrey Bodine was published by Schiffer Books in 2018. This is one of several books authored by Bodine’s daughter, Jennifer Bodine, and features 120 black and white railroad photographs taken by A. Aubrey Bodine, mostly in the 1950s.
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Last month, we looked at some of the reasons you might want to consider printing your work. (See here.) Living with your prints, and seeing them every day will sharpen your judgement and improve your work. A printed photograph is likely to be a more permanent means to preserve your memories. (For an interesting take on this, see “The Lesson from Costco’s Photo Lab”) And printing can be a valuable way to curate a meaningful body of work.
If you decide to print, you will find that the process is not easy, and it is not cheap. There are two options: buy a printer and print at home, or send your work out to a photo lab.
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If, like me, you came up in photography before the advent of digital, a photograph was a physical object; a print, or a slide. Photographs were distributed and seen as prints on photographic paper or in the pages of books and magazines. You could hang a photograph on the wall or fold it up and carry it with you in your wallet. It was a real object in the real world.
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I have about lost faith in the efficacy of New Year’s resolutions. Every year I resolve to understand trigonometry and become a better person, but so far I have made little progress on either of those resolution.
This year, I resolve to be a better photographer. To help me meet this goal, I have devised a simple guide, that I call the MDM Principle. The MDM Principle consists of the ideas represented by three words—More, Different, and Meaningful. The three words are easy to remember, and I hope they will keep me on track in 2019.
The year is drawing to a close, and this will be the last Editor’s Notebook for 2018. But there are still a few weeks to go, and we have several special articles for your enjoyment during the Holidays.
✒ This coming Thursday, December 13th, Jason Paul Sailer will take us along as he chases the Canadian Pacific Holiday Train across Alberta to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
✒ Then on December 20th, Steve Crise brings us the story of how memories of an American Flyer train under the Christmas Tree come to life again after almost fifty years.
✒ And be sure to catch the Holiday Extra on December 24th, as Danny Johnson remembers a Christmas Eve many years ago in a small Mississippi town on the Illinois Central mainline.
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